Promises
by Bringer of the Storm
Summary: At the edges of his sanity, he can feel the mangekyo stirring. Chapter 5
1. Promises

**Promises**

"Don't worry! I'll bring him back! Promise of a lifetime!"

Sakura watches Naruto leap off into the Konoha forests after Shikamaru and the others, the image of Naruto grinning his head off with his thumb up still burned into her retinas.

Lee comes up behind her, watching the genin fly through the forest without him, and feels useless as he never as before. He looks around for something, anything to do, and sees Sakura huddled in on herself as she watches the only person as close to her as Sasuke run off to save their teammate without her.

He comes up behind Sakura and stands nearby enough to be comforting, not threatening. "Naruto said it with the 'nice-guy' pose," he says, smiling happily, "This…this will all go well."

Sakura looks up at him with tears streaming from her eyes, remembers what happened the last time someone tried to live up to a 'nice-guy' promise, and tries to ignore the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

* * *

A/N: This was based off of chapter 183, or part of it. It's my first attempt at trying to limit myself to 100 words, which obviously didn't work, since it's somewhere close to 200. Not sure how this is, drabble-wise, so any concrit will be good.

I seem to be liking present-tense lately. I'm not sure how I feel about that.


	2. Butterfly Wings

**Butterfly Wings**

Chouji stares at the red pill.

It's lying there in its little box, and he's breathing hard and barely standing up after consuming the green and yellow pills, and he can feel the chakra eating away at him, trying to consume him before he can eat the last pill and defeat Jirobo…

Slowly he reaches for the pill, fighting his muscles every inch of the way.

As the ground explodes around him, he feels the chakra burning inside of him and ripping out of his back to form wings that swirl and float around him.

Chouji prepares to launch his final attack, and his mind begins to shut down even as he begins the assault. He charges up the chakra in his fist and runs towards Jirobo, intent on protecting his best friend, even if it costs him his life.

His footsteps are heavy and his breath is harder to catch and the chakra is burning…

_Shikamaru…I'm sorry._

_I'm breaking my promise…_


	3. Tunnel Vision

**Tunnel Vision**

Neji faces Kidomaru, knowing that his weak point has finally been revealed. Channeling a small bit of chakra into the blind spot, the smallest he can manage, he feels the arrow coming towards him and wonders what to do.

The chakra screams at him, warning him of the impending danger, and time seems to slow as the arrow continues on its path towards him

On its own, his body moves two centimeters to the right.

Pinned to the tree, Neji stares at the thread connecting him to Kidomaru, and slowly raises his hands, pulsing out one last bit of chakra. His vision tunnels as the chakra races back down the thread to its holder until the thread of blue is the only thing Neji can see.

The thread breaks, and Neji runs forward, blasting Kidomaru with a jyuuken as the voices clamor in his head, intertwining and blocking his vision until the only thing he can see are Kidomaru's eyes.

Kidomaru demands to know why Neji hasn't died yet, and Neji manages a derisive laugh, forcing it out around the blood in his throat.

"I…cannot die so easily..." _I will not die so easily._

As Neji falls back on the grass, the Hyuuga blood pulsates in his veins, and a golden bird flies through his line of sight.

_I promise…_


	4. Checkmate

**Checkmate**

Shikamaru always knew that chess would be his undoing.

He's never admitted it, but he always views battles as extremely dangerous versions of chess, with each soldier acting as a different piece. It is part of the reason that he is so good at strategizing.

Chouji is the pawn, the piece viewed as generally useless and expendable. He has always been the weakest of their group, with the most limited moves. Every chess player worth his salt, though, knows that pawns can sometimes be your most important and powerful piece.

He is not sure what Neji is. Neji is a bishop, perhaps, locked into only one form of movement, one path forward in life. To peg him as such a restricted piece seems unfair, though, because he is the strongest of them and therefore deserves the title of queen. However, the queen always falls in battle, so perhaps Neji is better off as the bishop after all.

Kiba is easy to peg as the knight. Wild and unpredictable, he moves erratically across the board, powerful in his role as the wild card, coming from directions no one expects. He is also as loyal and brave as a knight, ill-suited to the deceit and lies that define the life of a ninja.

In the end, they all revolve around Naruto, their king. He is the most important piece in their game, because if he is defeated, their mission is over, and so he must be protected at all costs. The king stands alone as the victor at the end, and in his heart Shikamaru can tell that Naruto is headed along that path. Does this make Sasuke a king too, he wonders, because he is the objective, the piece they need to topple to win their battle. If both Naruto and Sasuke are kings, and only one can stand alone at the end, which will it be? However hard Shikamaru tries to ignore what his mind is telling him, it's impossible.

Shikamaru himself is not a piece, but the player. He directs all the pieces and his mind has to move along all their paths to use them efficiently. Until now, he was perfect at that due to long practice. He had promised himself he would never lose the game when he was little, after all, so he played and played until he was the best.

Shikamaru has never lost a game of chess, but for once the checkmate isn't is his favor.

As he watches Tayuya raise her hand, he thinks that perhaps chess should be his undoing, because the irony is all too fitting.


	5. At the Edge

**At the Edge**

* * *

The winds are howling around him, and Sasuke can feel himself being pushed back by the power of the Rasengan. Desperately he digs his heels in, forcing his hand forward, knowing that this is his last chance to gain the power he needs and he'd better not screw it up…

In a heart-stopping moment, he feels something give, and the compact ball of power bursts and sends out shockwaves that nearly send him flying back into a rock. He barely keeps his balance and closes his eyes, willing the blinding light to fade. When he can only see darkness, he opens them again.

He and Naruto are in a slowly shrinking circle of light. Naruto is felled, with a hole through his chest.

At first, Sasuke can only stare, panting slightly. His hitai-ate falls off his forehead, and Sasuke stares at it. It is covered in dirt and dried blood, and its raggedly torn ends are moving on either side of Naruto's wound as he breathes. Red begins to cloud his sight again, and he reaches for a kunai.

Above him, thunder rolls across the sky, and rain begins to pour down, cooling his rage and washing the blood from his vision. His sight clears, and his hitai-ate is the first thing he sees.

On it is a scratch.

Sasuke's left arm throbs painfully as he leans over Naruto. Slowly he reaches out a hand and rests it on Naruto's forehead, painstakingly tracing the untainted leaf symbol. After he is done, he straightens and continues on his path towards Orochimaru, leaving Naruto on the ground.

At the edges of his sanity, he can feel the mangekyo stirring.

* * *

_A fallen boy lies on the ground as another fallen boy walks on, and a fallen man chases after them, too little and too late to save them._


End file.
